In 1818, Congress decided the United States flag would consist of 13 red and white stripes and 20 stars, with a new star to be added for every new state of the Union.

In 1841, President William Henry Harrison succumbed to pneumonia one month after his inaugural, becoming the first U.S. chief executive to die in office.

In 1850, the city of Los Angeles was incorporated.

In 1859, 150 years ago, “Dixie” was performed publicly for the first time by Bryant’s Minstrels at Mechanics’ Hall in New York. (The song is popularly attributed to Daniel Decatur Emmett, although his authorship has been called into question.)

In 1887, Susanna Madora Salter became the first woman elected mayor of an American community: Argonia, Kan.

In 1945, during World War II, U.S. troops on Okinawa encountered the first significant resistance from Japanese forces at the Machinato Line.

On January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrated 73 seconds after its takeoff from Cape Canaveral in Florida, killing all seven crew members, including school teacher Christa McAuliffe. It was the worst disaster in the history of space exploration to that point: here.

The OECD anticipates unemployment in Germany will rise to 11.5 percent in 2010, and exceed the 5 million mark: here.

Spain: Big business demands savage attacks on working class following bank crash: here.

TENS of thousands of Greek workers from all industries and services took part last Thursday in the rallies and demonstrations staged in the capital Athens and in every city and town as part of the 24-hour general strike called by the GSEE (Greek TUC) against the policies of the right-wing Karamanlis government: here.

HARD-UP British families are facing the prospect of malnutrition due to the recession and soaring food prices, a charity warned on Sunday: here.

Obama calls his approach A New Strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Real renewal, real change, should proceed from truth. Not from old Bush-era untrue propaganda on the Bhutto murder, then designed to shield George W.´s dictator pal from deserved disgust.

This point in Obama´s speech is symptomatic for other instances in which Obama does not make the necessary change from the Bush era. Obama acknowledged that since Bush started the Afghan war in 2001, the violence had only grown worse, in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. But he did not analyze how the policies of the Bush administration had greatly contributed to that. When talking about the Taliban, Obama differentiated between a hard core. And others, who joined the Taliban `because of coercion or simply for a price`.

The dead and injured included local and foreign militants, but women and children were also killed in the attack, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to the media.

In a rebuke to the Bush and Obama administrations’ bid to hold so-called enemy combatants indefinitely without charges or trials, a federal judge has ruled that three detainees at a US prison in Afghanistan have the right to challenge their detention in court: here.

In his two-day visit to Turkey, President Obama sought to distance himself from the disastrous foreign policy legacy of George W. Bush while pursuing the same strategic interests of US imperialism that motivated the wars launched by his predecessor: here.